New Music: Faith Evans & KeKe Wyatt - "Make Love"

Over the past few weeks I have been feeling the full effect of what it’s like to be in the desert and to happen on the most glorious oasis full of water, shade(the good kind), color and beauty in some of the music that I have been hearing from folks like Dave Hollister, the debut project from Brandon Williams and now this collaboration “Make Love” from two of my favorite vocalists Faith Evans & KeKe Wyatt.

Culled from Faith’s upcoming project Incomparable due out Tuesday “Make Love” like the aforementioned projects puts R&B solidly back to where it should be and that is that there should be a base level of musicianship that should have been achieved before you or someone else enters your name or production into the lexicon of this music. In plain English… it’s time for the wack beats and makers of those beats to pull up to Carnegie Hall after the curtain call, once the audience has left as there will plenty of seats for the taking. Stay there, for all of our sakes because you have gummed up the works for far too long and placed our ears into a desolate sonic desert for the better part of the last 15 or so odd years (I’m talking mainstream tonight).

This is not an old or a young thing, this is a good music vs. stop trying to make music that you cannot. It’s not that the music has to be overly complex – “Make Love” is structured around 4 chords. So the lesson is it needs to be the right 4 chords that harmonically interesting and then construct a melody that will keep the listener’s interest and not rely on cartoonish sounding single keyboard line riffs and the drums sound Du jour that blindly buy into every cliched trend of what some “industry” clown says music should be in 2014. Nope, that’s it. Press play and dig the sounds and if this is in your lane, invite a friend to enjoy the ride.

Ivan Orr is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, performer, and writer. A native of Charlottesville, Virginia Ivan was involved with the forming and nascent days of The Music Resource Center as its first Program Director. A graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Music, Ivan currently resides in Richmond, VA where he maintains an active performance and production schedule while serving as the Music Editor for Grown Folks Music, a position he has held since 2010.